Taiwan’s housing transactions fell last month from one month earlier, as global financial market turmoil dampened investor confidence, major real-estate agencies said.
Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋), the nation’s only listed real estate broker, saw its sales drop 8 percent in Taipei City and 13 percent in New Taipei City last month, from August, the company said in a statement.
Stanley Su (蘇啟榮), head of Sinyi’s research department, said the decline was mainly the result of equity corrections across global bourses last month, during which the TAIEX shed 6.67 percent, or 515.98 points, to finish at 7,225.38 at the close of trade on Friday.
Foreign investors slashed NT$78.68 billion (US$2.58 billion) in net local shares last month, after cutting NT$190.35 billion net holdings one month earlier, Taiwan Stock Exchange data indicated.
Houses priced at NT$20 million or lower accounted for 75 percent of Sinyi’s transactions as people favored cash over aggressive real -estate investments amid growing economic uncertainty, Su said.
The cautious sentiment drove up inquiries for two-bedroom apartments valued at between NT$12 million and NT$22 million among first-time home buyers, Su said.
Prices were likely to remain flat or fall slightly on a negative wealth effect in the coming months, he said, while young married couples and people intent on tying the knot would support the market.
Taiwanese like to get married toward the end of the year and home purchases are considered important in building families.
H&B Realty Co (住商不動產), the nation’s largest real-estate broker by number of franchises, reported a 5 percent fall in housing transactions last month, with the Greater Taipei area accounting for most of that, the broker said in a statement.
“More and more people share the view that cash is king after the global bourses tumbled last month,” Hsu said. “The strengthening US dollar is luring global capital away from emerging markets, including Taiwan, leaving real -estate assets less attractive.”
Hsu, who had previously expected the housing market to bounce back this quarter, now holds a neutral view.
The return of unpaid leave at science-based parks in Hsinchu and Taichung is also likely to weaken home sales in those areas, where transactions have so far been less affected by the introduction of a luxury tax in June because of their relative affordability, Hsu said.
Low-priced units near public transportation will be the mainstay in the coming months, while inquiries about upscale housing are likely to turn sluggish, she said.
Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋), the nation’s largest real-estate broker by number of outlets, said transactions remained unchanged in last month from August as customers regained some of their confidence, following auctions of commercial properties over the last two weeks that drew record offers.
However, overall sales at Evertrust lagged behind the January level by 30 percent after reports that the luxury tax was starting to impact sales in February, Everstrust associate manager Jeffery Huang (黃增福) said.
The market is unlikely to recover fully until the eurozone shows signs of stabilization from its debt crisis, Huang said.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
AI: Softbank’s stake increases in Nvidia and TSMC reflect Masayoshi Son’s effort to gain a foothold in key nodes of the AI value chain, from chip design to data infrastructure Softbank Group Corp is building up stakes in Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the latest reflection of founder Masayoshi Son’s focus on the tools and hardware underpinning artificial intelligence (AI). The Japanese technology investor raised its stake in Nvidia to about US$3 billion by the end of March, up from US$1 billion in the prior quarter, regulatory filings showed. It bought about US$330 million worth of TSMC shares and US$170 million in Oracle Corp, they showed. Softbank’s signature Vision Fund has also monetized almost US$2 billion of public and private assets in the first half of this year,
POWELL SUCCESSOR: US Fed Governor Adriana Kugler’s resignation gives Donald Trump an opening on the board, potentially accelerating his decision on the next chair US President Donald Trump suddenly has a chance to fill an opening at the US Federal Reserve earlier than expected, after Fed Governor Adriana Kugler announced her resignation on Friday. It might also force him to pick the next Fed chair months sooner than he had anticipated. “The ball is now in Trump’s court,” LH Meyer/Monetary Policy Analytics Inc economist Derek Tang said. “Trump is the one who’s been putting pressure on the Fed to do this and that, and Trump says he wants to have his own people on. So now he has the opportunity.” Kugler’s exit unfolds amid unprecedented public pressure
RSS